The Influence of Low Dutch on the English Vocabulary

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Chapter XI
Low Dutch Miners in England

11. 1.^{11. 1.}

The German miners were for many centuries the most skilled in Europe, and from the end of the 13th century on we find them called in to take part in English mining enterprises. It is often difficult, in some cases impossible, to decide whether the Germans in question were from High or Low Germany, and the title of German or Almaine was frequently given even to Flemings and other Netherlanders.

The most extensive English mining industry in the Middle Ages was for lead and silver. As early as 1314 Herman de Alemannia and other adventurers were mining at Brushford near Dulverton. An interesting instance of the greater skill of the Germans is the case of Thomas de Alemaigne, a silver finer, who petitioned the king to grant him the slag from the Devon mines out of which the native refiners had extracted all the metal they could; this same Thomas was employed by the king in 1324 to dig, cleanse, and examine his mines in Cumberland and Westmorland. In 1359 Tilman de Cologne was working the Alston mines in Cumberland.

In 1475 a company, consisting of the Duke of Gloucester, the Earl of Northumberland, William Goderswyk, and John Marchall, obtained a grant for fifteen years of the mines of Blaunchlond in Northumberland, Fletchers-in-Alston, and Keswick, and also of the copper mines near Richmond. The company could not have lasted long, for only three years later William Goderswyk, Henry Van Orel, Arnold Van Anne, Albert Millyng of Cologne, and Dederic Van Riswyk of England received a grant for ten years of all mines of gold, silver, copper, and lead in Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland, and for this they had to pay one-fifteenth of their profits.

In 1528 Joachim Hochstetter, probably a High German, was appointed chief surveyor and master of the mines of England and Ireland. He brought over six German experts and advised that a foundry should be erected at Combe Martin in North Devon. It was not until the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, however, that mining with English money and German skill was undertaken on a large scale.

11. 1. Salz. 65-9, 75; A.I. 116, 122-4, 134, 185, 215; I.C. ii. 293; M. 141.

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The alien miner was active in Scotland also. In 1511 a Dutchman was employed as smelter in the mine on Crawford Muir. In 1562 James V of Scotland gave mining concessions to some Germans. A series of mining rights in Scotland were granted to Flemings in the 16th century: to Cornelius de Vos in 1567, to Gray Petierson in 1575, to Arnold Bronckhurst in 1580, and to Eustatius Roche in 1583; this last also had a patent granted him for the manufacture of salt. The Keswick Company, too, entered into negotiations for the mining of gold on Crawford Muir. Soon after the Restoration men were introduced from Holland to work in the Keswick mines. It is said that the use of gunpowder for blasting in mines was first introduced by German miners brought over by Prince Rupert to work in the mines at Ecton in Staffordshire.

The mining of tin and copper was confined mainly to Cornwall and Devon. At the end of the 13th century Richard of Cornwall brought in Germans to work in his Cornish mines. In the reign of Queen Mary a melting-house for refining tin was built by Burcord Crangs, a German. In the reign of Elizabeth one Humphrey, a paymaster of the Mint, seems to have interested himself in mining speculations; he had as his partner a German miner, Christopher Shatz, and the field of their operations was chiefly Ireland. By the end of the 16th century copper was being mined extensively in Cornwall, at Treworthy, Perran Sands, St. Just, and Logan, and these mines were worked by Dutchmen. These men seem to have been paid high wages, and there is an interesting remonstrance from Sir T. Smith which urges that Cornishmen should be employed instead of Dutchmen, as they are willing to work for less wages.

The Cornelius de Vos who was interested in Scottish mining in 1567 obtained permission to work the alum mines in the Isle of Wight. Alum was a commodity necessary to the cloth trade, and it had been practically a papal monopoly; a native supply was extremely welcome, and since de Vos had discovered the beds, he obtained the right to work them.

11. 2.

There are a few terms of mining operations. Groove (1400-50, 1483, Mendip Laws), a mining shaft, mine pit; ad. e.mod.Du. groeve, ‘sulcus, fosse, scrobs’ (Kilian). The vb. is from the sb., Groove (1483), to sink a mining shaft; but compare groeven in Kilian. Groover (1610), a miner; from the sb. groove and -er, but Kilian has groever.

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Buck (1683), to break ore very small with a bucker; probably ad. LG. böken or Du. beuken, to beat, strike (cf. also Du. boken, booken, with the same senses). Bucker (1653), a hammer used in bucking ore; O.E.D. says that this word is from the vb. buck and -er, but as it is recorded thirty years earlier than the vb., it is quite possible that it is immediately ad. LG. böker, hammer (MLG. boker, hammer, sledge), and that the vb. is a back-formation on bucker.

Stack (1832), a term of coal-mining, chiefly used in the phrase ‘to stack out’, to dam up or shut up the entrance to a goaf by building a wall in front of it; perhaps ad. LG. stack, a dam.

The following are terms for mining apparatus and constructions. Tram (1500-20, Dunbar), the shaft of a barrow or cart; (1516-17, Durh. Acc. Rolls), in coal-mining, a tram; (a. 1734), tramway, a track of wood, stone, or iron; probably of Low Dutch origin and apparently the same word as LG. traam, balk, beam, e.g. of a wheelbarrow or dung-sledge, tram, handle of a barrow or sledge, also rung or step of a ladder, bar of a chair, E.Fris. trame, trâm, with the same senses, MLG. trame, treme, M.Du. trame; balk or beam, rung of a ladder, W.Flem. traam, trame. The specific sense first found in Sc. is that of ‘tram of a barrow’, and the further sense development presents many difficulties, chiefly from the scarcity of early examples and the fact that the various senses are from different localities, so that they cannot be taken as showing any general development. The secondary sense, in which tram is a miner's term for the vehicle for carrying coal or ore, may, on the principle of part for whole, have arisen out of ‘barrow-tram’. The sense of ‘tramway’ is more difficult; if it was short for something like ‘tram-track’, it might have arisen out of the sense ‘miner's tram’; if it was primarily applied to the wooden beams or rails as tram-tracks, it might possibly go back to the LG. sense of balk or beam; evidence for this is wanting, but there is a case for considering the sense ‘tramway’ as a term borrowed in mining, and then the sense ‘tram’ as having arisen out of it as first ‘tram-wagon, tram-barrow’, and then simply tram.

Coe (1653, Manlove, Lead Mines), a little hut built over a mine-shaft as a protection to the shaft; the Sc. form cow is more etymological and is probably from Du. kouw (M.Du. and MLG. couwe, côje), in the same sense, ad. L. cavea, hollow, stall, cage, coop. Kyle (1747, Hooson, Miner's Dict.), a small iron wedge

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used to fasten the head of a pick, hammer, &c.; perhaps ad. LG. kîl, kile, wedge.

There are a few terms for minerals. Glance-ore (1457-8), a kind of lead ore; this is a half-adoption, half-translation of Du. glanserts (ad. G. glanzertz), from glans, lustre, and erts, ore. Spar (1581), a general term for a number of crystalline minerals more or less lustrous in appearance and admitting of easy cleavage; ad. MLG. spar, sper; also in combs, as sparglas, sparkalk. Lead-glance (1810), galena; perhaps a translation of Du. lood-glans.

11. 3.

Terms of the treatment and smelting of ores are perhaps best included under mining.

Smelter (1455), one who smelts; from smelt, vb., but cf. Du. smelter. Smelt (1543), to fuse or melt ore in order to extract the metal; probably ad. M.Du. or MLG. smelten (smilten), to smelt, whence also M.Sw. and Sw. smälta, Norw. smelta, Da. smelte. The pa. pple. of this verb is found as the Scottish ppl. adj. Smout (1595), smelted; ad. M.Du. ghesmouten, pa. pple. of smelten, to smelt. Smelthouse (1684), a place where smelting is carried on; from smelt and house or ad. Du. smelthuis. Smeltery (1814) is from the vb. smelt, but cf. Du. smelterij. Slag (1552), a piece of refuse matter, separated from metal in the process of smelting; ad. MLG. slagge (whence Sw. slagg).